SMW 9

“Did I say I caused an accident here while trying to save a cat?”

“……Yeah.”

The silent protest ended in a hollow anticlimax. That was the story I had told him at the hospital. To be honest, there was no way of knowing if I had actually tried to save it or if I’d just reacted instinctively to avoid it, but at the time, I figured a touching story would be much better. After all, shortly after waking up in the hospital, he had a look in his eyes like he was about to snatch Il-sun-i and do something to her. Even if she was annoying at times, she was a stray I’d grown fond of enough to give her a name. I had to save her life. I wondered if Il-sun-i knew of my efforts. I didn’t need a reward; I’d be grateful if she just didn’t knock over the wall.

“Did the cat survive?”

“She did. But since it happened so fast, I’m not entirely sure which cat it was… Gasp!”

“What is it?”

“Huh? Nothing, it’s nothing.”

There was another one roaming around this early in the morning. One who acted as if he were a descendant of a tiger, coming whenever I spoke. It was Il-sun-i, the primary cause of the accident.

Don’t come here. Run away.

Contrary to my desperate wish, the creature climbing from the rice paddy toward the road locked eyes with me and quickly walked over.

“Meow.”

And she cried. She sat down just a short distance from Choi Seol and began to meow incessantly. I quickly gauged his reaction.

“Cute.”

Fortunately, he didn’t seem to know that this cat was the culprit who had wiped away his entire memory. Then again, even if his memory were intact, the accident had happened in a flash. He wouldn’t have had time to observe the cat leaping in front of the car in detail. Then, maybe it was okay to act like I knew her.

“Right? She’s the cutest of the strays that come to my house. Her name is Il-sun-i, and her mother was the most… anyway, cute, right? Hahaha.”

Come to think of it, Il-sun-i had jumped in front of the car because of her mother. The mother and daughter were a pair of troublemakers. And they happened to be the two strays I cherished most. That was why I kept feeling a useless sense of guilt over the accident.

“Her name is Il-sun-i?”

Fortunately, Choi Seol didn’t pay much attention to my rambling. I quickly nodded.

“I started feeding her mother first, and [unauthorized copy]then the mother cat had kittens in my Read on Read BL Novelsstorage shed. She was one stolen contentof them. Since she was the first born after I moved here, I named her Il-sun-i.”

“Isn’t that a bit low-effort?”

“True. It was low-effort.”

I admitted it readily. I hated agonizing over things. To be precise, since I’m the type to dig endlessly once I start overthinking, I avoided creating situations that required deep thought in the first place. Thus, putting a lot of heart into naming a stray cat was unthinkable. That’s why the names of the strays that visited my house were simple. Spotted, Blackie, Snotty, and so on…

“But there’s affection in it. Giving a name means exactly that.”

To me, giving a name was no different from giving one’s heart.

“Han Yeo-reum.”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing, it’s nothing.”

What is he, so anticlimactic?

My heart jumped just because he suddenly called unauthorized copymy name. Choi Seol, however, as if [unauthorized copy]it really was nothing, looked back at the cat.

“That’s a relief.”

“What is?”

“I almost killed a child you cared for with my own hands. And you almost witnessed that.”

From the way he spoke, he didn’t seem to know that the cat was specifically Il-sun-i; he just thought a cat I looked after had almost died. While it was touching that he thought that way, the mere thought of the possibility that the cat actually got hurt gave me chills.

Il-sun-i. Looks like you’re safe now.

Fortunately, he seemed to be generous toward animals.

“Meow.”

“I think she wants food.”

Choi Seol spoke in response to Il-sun-i’s persistent meowing. It seemed he was quite capable of communicating with cats. Could he actually be a butler who had sworn loyalty to the feline lords?

“By any chance, do you like cats?”

At my cautious question, Choi Seol gave a vague smile.

“I usually find animals bothersome. But there are a lot of strays around my house, and as I fed them from time to time, I strangely grew fond of them. Though my grandmother hated them, saying they were too noisy.”

My heart jolted at an unexpected point. I had told myself to be careful, yet the topic of his maternal grandmother came up again. I felt a sudden wave of guilt, as if I had poked at a painful wound.

It seemed my thoughts were written all over my face.

“Don’t worry about it. She suffered a lot from her chronic illness anyway. She’s finally at peace now.”

I didn’t know who was comforting whom. At this point, I couldn’t look away anymore.

“When did your maternal grandmother pass away? You said it hadn’t been long.”

“My last memory was the day after the funeral ended.”

“Then… it really hasn’t been long.”

I should have asked sooner. Since the death registration was in [unauthorized copy]mid-winter and Choi Seol [Read on Read BL Novels]had stolen contentsaid it was ‘a while ago,’ I thought there might be a difference of a few weeks, but for him, it truly had been very recent. Moreover, his calm voice, as if suppressing his emotions, made my chest feel tight.

“It would have been better if you’d told me.”

As I muttered this while looking at the innocent Il-sun-i, unable to meet his eyes, I felt his gaze on me.

“I did. What, were you going to comfort me personally?”

“Well…”

“Forget it. How could I tell those things to someone who hates me? I’d be lucky if they didn’t just run away.”

My head, which had been bowed in solemnity, snapped up at Choi Seol’s words.

“Who said I hate you?”

“Then you don’t?”

“Me? Me? Are you talking about me right now?”

There was no verbal answer, but his eyes provided the answer.

“I… hated you?”

Me? I was speechless. It wasn’t because my conscience was pricked, but because it was so absurd. To tell someone who had suffered in silence because they liked him so much they could die that they hated him? I couldn’t let this slide out of sheer indignation.

“On what basis do you think I hated you?”

“You barely made eye contact with me at school. You only approached me to say hello when I specifically called you, and even then, you looked like you were being dragged to a slaughterhouse. Later, you even avoided me blatantly.”

I had been mentally preparing to refute him, but as he spoke, memories flashed through my mind. Not a single word was wrong. Of course, since it was from Choi Seol’s perspective, there seemed to be some misunderstanding.

“Was it my mistake?”

“That’s…”

I started to say it wasn’t, but I closed my mouth. If I did, I’d have to explain the reason why I tried so hard to avoid him, and was that even possible?

I couldn’t possibly tell him that it was because he was my first love, that I liked him so much I couldn’t even look at him, that I didn’t know what to do, and that whenever he called my name and approached me, my heart beat so fast and I felt so breathless that my mind went blank and I became a fool who couldn’t even speak—and that’s why I kept running away.

“You were the same way.”

And so, I had become twisted.

At my rebuttal, Choi Seol’s eyes widened slightly.

“You avoided me too. Toward the end of the semester… and yet you say that.”

It wasn’t something for the person who avoided him first to say, but I had tried to strike up a conversation toward the end. Of course, there were reasons for that too, but Choi Seol had ultimately ignored me. These were memories I had kept buried, and bringing them up made me feel unexpectedly emotional.

“That was…”

This time, Choi Seol’s lips opened and then closed again. Seeing him hesitate and stiffen his expression as if he, too, had a reason he couldn’t speak of, I let out a deep sigh.

“Forget it. It’s already in the past, so let’s just move on.”

It wasn’t a trivial matter at all, but I pretended it was. I had no desire to summon the seventeen-year-old Han Yeo-reum back.

“In the past… Right, you said it’s already been ten years.”

As if chewing over my words, Choi Seol murmured bitterly.

“Honestly, I still can’t believe it. That I’ve lived ten years more than I remember. But Han Yeo-reum, looking at you, it actually seems true.”

“Why? Are you going to say I look old again? Hey, ten whole years have passed. At twenty-seven, I’m quite young-looking. Believe it or not, I still get my ID checked at bars.”

“No, not that.”

Choi Seol shook his head and leaned his waist toward me. In the suddenly narrowed distance, our eyes met.

“Now, you make eye contact with me and talk to me just fine.”

He sounded as if it were incredibly fascinating.

“You’re quite good at holding hands, too.”

“No, that’s a misunderstanding…”

“And you’re bold enough to just dive into a sleeping person’s blanket.”

“Who! Who dove into a sleeping person’s… blanket?”

Me? Wait, come to think of it, where was I when I woke up? In that moment, memories suddenly flashed back. Yesterday, I had gone close to Choi Seol to move the fan nearer, and seeing him sleeping peacefully, I had gotten sleepy myself and then… Gasp!

I did. I clearly remembered burrowing into Choi Seol’s bedding. At first, I think I just lay down on the floor next to him, but as it got cold in the early morning, I must have sought out the blanket. And then what happened?

“Don’t tell me I kicked you?”

I don’t know about my sleep-talking, but I certainly wasn’t the type to sleep quietly. Did I ask that for nothing? I regretted it, feeling as if I had just added another charge to my crimes. Choi Seol’s expression shifted strangely, as if he hadn’t expected me to ask such a thing, and then the corners of his lips curled up suggestively. At least, it looked suggestive to me.

“Well, the blanket was certainly too small for two people.”

Heat instantly rushed to my face.

“You should have pushed me away. You should have kicked me and thrown me out.”

“How could I do that to a child fast asleep? Instead, I was the one who came out, so don’t worry.”

Is that why he came outside this early in the morning? It wasn’t a walk, it was because of me?

“Sorry. I’m not usually like that, but I hate the cold so much that in my sleep I…”

“Don’t worry. Nothing happened. You slept so quietly I wondered if you had died. Rather… it was quite comforting.”

I was lost for words at the last sentence delivered in a hesitant voice. Giving me a soft smile, Choi Seol stepped back and turned his gaze elsewhere. At the end of the wide-stretching rice paddy, the long sun was finally revealing itself, bringing the heat with it.

“My last memory right before waking up in the hospital was of searching for someone. I was desperate. After holding my grandmother’s funeral alone and scattering her ashes, I felt truly lonely. I felt like there was really no one left for me. I was so lonely I felt like I was going crazy, thinking I was truly alone in the world. And I was cold. It was mid-winter, so that was only natural, but still.”

A hot warmth was felt against my slightly chilled nose.

Summer in the middle of the day always made one long for winter. If so, did winter long for summer?

“That’s why I searched. Because I missed Yeo-reum.”

And you were there.

That was what Choi Seol was saying. I couldn’t say anything. It didn’t matter. Because the person waiting for an answer was not there. Not yet.